Chapter 17 Chapter Six

The abuse and deception Qin Shihuang suffered in his childhood was branded deep in his heart and became an organic part of his life.His compensation and revenge have also had a profound impact on the land of China, which has been accumulated in the hearts of the nation and passed down from generation to generation.The means of compensation and revenge are not only military conquest, but also the destruction of spiritual culture. This is the famous "burning books and burying Confucianism" in history. The ugliness of Yingzheng's childhood and the mystery of his life experience are always subject to people's suspicions and speculations. The main form of these discussions is whispering. They are always vague, you can't hear clearly, right? From time to time, one or two key words are poured into your ears, such as bastard, bastard, ugly, and you can tell that they are talking about you; when you want to hear it clearly, those twitterings become distant again And blurred, no matter how you search, you can't catch it.Therefore, as soon as he hears people's comments, he will feel an inexplicable anger, want to vent, want to curse people, want to kill people, he can't wait to cut off all the tongues of these people and fry them into "population strips" like pig mouth strips "Eat them all as a side dish.

"Defending the mouth of the people is better than Fangchuan", he has been looking for opportunities to seal the mouths of the subjects of the whole country, tie up and lock all the "whispers" throughout the ages and make them permanent silence.He searched, endured, waited. The opportunity finally came. At a celebration banquet, there was a moderate "tongue war" between Li Si, who had been promoted to prime minister, and Chun Yuyue, a doctor of the state of Qi.During the debate, Li Si pointed the finger at the Confucian scholars all over the world, saying: "Now the world is peaceful, the laws and regulations are unified, and ordinary people live and work in peace and prosperity, but the Confucian scholars are making trouble out of nothing, using the past instead of the present to sow discord and confuse the people. If the imperial court does not ban it in time, the emperor's power will be endangered at the top, and crony disputes will be formed at the bottom."

Although Li Si's words were sensational, they hit Yingzheng's heart. He couldn't help but nodded and encouraged Li Si to continue talking, hoping that he could come up with a practical countermeasure and make a great contribution to Qin. So, Liston paused, rolled his eyes a few times, and continued: "I suggest that, except for the book "Qin Ji" and the book about medicine, divination and tree planting, all other books in the world should be burned! Except for the country in charge of the doctor Those who collect books, other collections of "Poetry" and other works of various schools of thought, should all be sent to local officials to be burned; those who dare to talk about "Poem" with two people should be executed immediately, and those who use the past to satirize the current clan will be punished. "If you don't burn books after 30 days after the order of burning books, you will be punished with tattoos and hard labor; private education is strictly prohibited, subjects are encouraged to study law, and officials are teachers..."

Ying Zheng listened and applauded loudly.As a result, a large-scale book burning order flew from Xianyang Palace to all parts of the country through the roads extending in all directions.Books of priceless classics and volumes of rare and rare books soon turned into dust and wisps of smoke, flying over the land of China for a long time, refusing to disperse.This book-burning activity went on for more than a month with great fanfare, and the aftermath continued until the end of the Qin Dynasty. Yingzheng's first large-scale book-burning act set a bad precedent for the ignorant and embarrassing feudal emperors. The havoc and trauma caused to the culture and soul of the Chinese nation cannot be redeemed or repaired.He made the intervention of feudal political power on spiritual culture more direct, faster, more brutal and more superficial.Under the absolute high-pressure cultural autocratic policy, the people's freedom of thinking is prohibited, their ingenuity is stifled, and their rationality is trampled on. Therefore, from ancient times to the present, China has been accustomed to having only one voice and only one kind of book to read. There is only one mode of life, and apart from this "orthodoxy", the others are heresies and heresies of the left.There is no competition, no contention, no discussion, lifeless from top to bottom, just like the pool of "dead water" described by Wen Yiduo.What is the vitality and way out for a nation that is so withdrawn, old, and impotent?

The other is the incident of pitting Confucianism that has been criticized by future generations. In fact, what Yingzheng killed were those alchemists who deceived him in his pursuit of immortality.In order to vent his anger, he made a big effort to extract confessions, and as a result, as many as 460 people were implicated.In a rage, Qin Shihuang killed them all.In this regard, Gu Jiegang wrote in the book "Alchemists and Confucian Scholars in the Qin and Han Dynasties": "Burning books was the political mission of the early unification, and harassing Confucianism was nothing more than Shihuang's personal temper." To distinguish between them, they often have two jobs, Confucian scholars are alchemists, and alchemists are Confucian scholars.Although alchemists and Confucian scholars do not have much ability, they are good at creating public opinion, wagging their lips, and scribbling black characters on white paper.Ying Zheng dared to oppose them, so he was doomed to not have a good image and reputation in the long river of Chinese history.There are two ways to leave a name through the ages, one is to leave a fragrance, and the other is to leave a bad smell.Of course Qin Shihuang longed to be famous, but he was ruined by Confucian scholars, and he only ended up with a permanent infamy.

A blaze of burning books and a cruel act of murdering alchemists and Confucian scholars not only made the tyranny of the Qin Dynasty develop to the extreme, but also made the middle and upper-level rulers alienated from morality, and even made Yingzheng lose the hearts of the people. The Qin Dynasty also lost the social basis for its continued existence. After doing all this, Ying Zheng seems to be still enjoying himself.Qin State destroyed the six kingdoms, and it seems that there is no place to accommodate the world. Where is the corner of the sea and the end of the sky?Gotta get them all in the bag.So, Qin Shihuang began to conquer the north and south again.

Ping Baiyue, set up three counties of Nanhai, Guilin, and Xiang.Although the Southern Expedition was difficult, it was finally accomplished. But the crusade against the Huns was not so smooth.In 215 BC, Lu Sheng, a native of Yan, was ordered to return from a search for immortals, and presented a so-called immortal book, one of which reads: "Hu Ye is the one who died in Qin Dynasty." Isn't this Hu the Huns?I was just about to attack and destroy the Hu people, how dare they destroy Qin?How overwhelmed!Therefore, Meng Tian led 300,000 elite soldiers to attack the Xiongnu after Yingzheng dispatched the famous Qin general.When the army arrived, the Xiongnu fled in anticipation, and soon occupied the Hetao area and set up Jiuyuan County.However, this battle only drove the Huns to the depths of the desert where there was no trace, but did not destroy and conquer them.Although we won, those fierce Hun cavalry came and went like the wind, and their actions were secretive. Who knows when and where they will raid the south and rob our country of Great Qin?It seems that only by building a majestic and stretching Great Wall from Gaoshan Mountain in the west to the sea, and keeping them out, can we resist the indefensible invasion and plunder, hide in the "home" and sleep peacefully, and keep the Daqin untouched. Death.

I have talked enough about the impact of the Great Wall on the Chinese nation over the years. I just want to say that the construction of the Great Wall is an external materialized reflection of Yingzheng's mutated mentality.Qin Shihuang's expansion was based on introversion.He reached the peak of self-importance by surpassing inferiority complex, but deep down, he was very lonely.He doesn't have a close friend, a relative he can rely on, and a minister he can entrust, and he cannot communicate and dialogue with others.Some thoughts, emotions, sorrows and joys can only be buried in the heart and chewed alone.The more lonely you are, the less you can rely on, and the more you have no support, the more you are afraid.In fact, Qin Shihuang has always been in a state of being strong on the outside and doing nothing on the inside.He is afraid of assassins, afraid of others talking about him, afraid of others looking down on him, afraid of sudden disturbance, afraid of death... Once his goal cannot be achieved, he is afraid in the bottom of his heart and wants to retreat.Building the Great Wall is a turning point and a symbol of his mentality shifting from outward conquest to inner restraint.In this regard, Sun Yat-sen wrote in "Founding Strategies": "Although Qin Shihuang annexed the six countries and unified the Central Plains as the hero of the first generation, he swept the desert and wiped out the Xiongnu, but he failed. He set up border guards to prevent drift There is no way to ride around without a certainty, and it is too troublesome. It is a once-and-for-all plan, and there is no one good at building the Great Wall to defend it.”

Qin Shihuang's mentality is converging, but his personal actions seem to be still extending. In 220 BC, the second year after Qin unified the six kingdoms, Yingzheng began to travel long distances.Its purpose is nothing more than to inspect prefectures and counties, visit mountains and rivers, spend money and enjoy, and publicize the "imperial prestige".Everywhere he went, he would carve stones and set up monuments to sing praises, and even traveled long distances to Mount Tai to "enshrine Zen".And these were all imitated by the later feudal emperors. I don’t know how many stories about a certain emperor going to the south of the Yangtze River, and a certain emperor’s private visit in disguise.Every generation of emperors must set up a stele to praise their virtues, and the merits and demerits of thousands of years must always be commented on by future generations. Therefore, the smartest people such as Wu Zetian set up a stele without words for themselves. prominent in the eyes of posterity.And the descendants of emperors who went to Mount Tai to enshrine Zen, and made this thing that integrates religion and political activities vivid and colorful, emerged in endlessly, and gradually formed a social mentality and "consensus": Pretentious performances on the top of Mount Tai will not be able to show the orthodoxy of the succession to the throne.

Qin Shihuang had a total of five tours. In the eyes of outsiders, he manages a lot of things every day, like a "perpetual motion machine" that seems to have endless energy.In the years after he took office, not to mention the daily trivial things, just those earth-shattering events, how many things should have been done!It seems that he is really not an ordinary mortal, but a superman, or a monster.In fact, it is the goal of surpassing inferiority, surpassing ordinary people, and establishing eternal goals that supports his body day after day and year after year.He is overdrawing his own life!Only he himself knows that these years, he has really worked hard!Now, he felt more tired than ever before, and he was also aging, and the shadow of death seemed to be lingering day by day.

In the depths of his heart, unconsciously, there was a sense of helpless sadness. Even the Huns in the north could not be wiped out, let alone conquer death?So he thought about death.Yes, he seems to understand that the emperor is not a god, no matter how noble and great he is, he will die one day.On the outside, he still maintains a lofty majesty, and no one can know the real activities in his heart. In 211 BC, a meteorite flew from outside the sky and landed in Dongjun.The common people, who had long been suffocated by Qin Shihuang's hard labor and excessive taxation, wanted to eat his meat and sleep his skin, so they carved a line on this meteorite: "When the first emperor dies, the land will be divided." Furious, he ordered all the nearby residents to be killed. The people's blood dried up, but the handwriting on the meteorite was deeply engraved in Qin Shihuang's mind, torturing his lonely and aging soul day and night.Could it be that there is really any destiny in the world?Is it true that he is going to die soon, and after he dies, Qin will be finished and will return to the past enfeoffment system?Is it possible to resolve the change of fate? "So the first emperor divination, the hexagram was auspicious for traveling and migration." Since traveling can be auspicious, let's take advantage of the remaining strength of the body to go to some places that have not been to before. In 210 BC, Qin Shihuang started his fifth and last parade in his life.This year, he was fifty years old. He took the left prime minister Li Si, the youngest son Hu Hai and his servant Zhao Gao to go together.Go out of Wuguan, follow the Danshui River and Hanshui River to Yunmeng, go east along the Yangtze River to Kuaiji Mountain to worship Dayu and engrave stones to commemorate it, and then cross the river to Langye. Here he met Xu Shi who was sent to the East China Sea to seek immortality and medicine during the second tour.For nine years, Xu Shi has not found any medicine for immortality, let alone encountered any gods.However, his rhetoric once again deceived and deceived Qin Shihuang. He said that there are immortals and medicines on a fairy island in the sea, but every time they went to the island, they were destroyed by a big shark, so they kept going. The island was not reached.Xu Shi's words aroused the last heroic spirit in Ying Zheng's aging heart. In Zhifu, he shot and killed a big whale with his own bow and crossbow.This mighty act of bowing and archery is probably the last gleam of the setting sun in Ying Zheng's life.However, he is still struggling, and he still has some fantasies about Xu Shi, immortals, and immortality. Since the giant monster in the sea has been shot and killed by me, the god Qin Shihuang, then there are no monsters that can hinder the search for immortals. It's a plan to collect medicine.Therefore, he ordered Xu Shi to lead 3,000 boys and girls and various craftsmen to search for immortals in the sea to seek medicine... After making a big circle, Qin Shihuang began to return west to Xianyang via Linzi.Traveling to Pingyuanjin, I suddenly fell ill for some reason.His candle of life was almost burnt out, and only the last dim light flickered faintly.However, the officials knew that he was afraid of death and tabooed death, so they all "don't dare to speak about death".The emperor's guard of honor entourage did not stop because of his illness. Ying Zheng was lying in the bumpy chariot in a daze, and vaguely heard a childish singing. "Taiping Yulan" quotes the nursery rhyme of "Yiyuan" in the eighth and sixth chapters: